6 ms·

Just curious, why is second hand book stores that important? I imagine that everything worth reading is available on Amazon and rated in Goodreads. I am just cu

Just curious, why is second hand book stores that important? I imagine that everything worth reading is available on Amazon and rated in Goodreads. I am just curious and hopefully I am totally wrong as well.

BuyMyBitcoins 4y ago
For me personally, it’s the experience and atmosphere rather than the availability. There’s also the charm of browsing without looking for anything specific in mind. I know it is possible to be shown a random assortment of books online, but it doesn’t compare with simply walking down the aisles and just scanning over all the titles for what looks interesting.
Swizec 4y ago
You can't browse Amazon, it's too in your face trying to make a quick buck. I just tried browsing Goodreads and it slapped me in the face with a gigantic Please Login Right Now You Terrible Person modal. Not very browsing friendly either, I guess. There is a charm to browsing a small bookstore. 2nd hand or otherwise. You dawdle in the aisles, meander between sections you'd never think to look at, catch your eye on interesting covers, try the heft of a book, see which ones are long and which are short, the design and the font give you a sense of character, tell you a little about what this book is like to read. You turn it around, read the back to learn more ... there is a spatial component to your search. When you stumble into a book that draws your attention, you're likely surrounded by similar books you might also enjoy. The experience is distinctly inefficient. Good for when you don't know what you want. Might not even realize what you're in the mood for until you find it. And somehow you never walk out with fewer than 3 books.
milesvp 4y ago
It’s the type of people they attract. It’s the owners who are often very avid readers. It’s the collection of books you find, most of which have had some amount of curation, if only because of limited shelving. They are often very low margin so often they add charm in the same way artists do to a low rent neighborhood.
tomc1985 4y ago
And supporting them is supporting a faceless corporation run by young, ageist technocrats, where all your rights are squashed under DRM
reaperducer 4y ago
I imagine that everything worth reading is available on Amazon and rated in Goodreads. Then you should broaden your imagination. Amazon and Goodreads have barely a fraction of one percent of the books that were published. And that's just in English. It's like saying "Anything worth watching is on streaming," even though less than 5% of the world's video content ever made the translation from film to VHS to DVD to streaming. Or paper to records to tape to CD to streaming. There's a whole vast world of content out there beyond the internet. Once you discover this, it's like taking a pill in The Matrix. (My metaphor might be off there, as I've never seen The Matrix, but from what I understand from other people's conversations, that should work.)
- fritztastic 4y ago
  I understand your metaphor in the sense that The Matrix is a scifi adaptation of the allegory of the cave. The concept that commercial/online bookstores are where items worth finding will be found is like thinking the shadows of the cave are the only thing worth seeing. You are correct, there is so much content there be found, which isn't limited/controlled by what the big market values. Additionally those are very good points about English and streaming. There are books out there which are not translated and not digitized, which are absolutely worth reading, and will not be found anywhere besides private collections, used bookstores, flea markets, estate sales. Some of these books were originally purchased long ago and/or far away, just because they are not popular enough to be easily found does not mean they are not worh finding.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    A friend of my dad is a professional book hound, and he says it amuses him when he sees others who can’t understand what to do with a book that doesn’t have an isbn.
    - dmd 4y ago
      When my wife and I wanted to catalog our modest home library (~1500 books) we were stunned when we discovered that the vast majority of web-based cataloging software assumes that all books have an ISBN. (Or did in 2015 or so). Thankfully LibraryThing does not make that assumption, and is great.
yojo 4y ago
I’ll offer another perspective: human interaction. Good book stores have good staff, helpful other humans that will engage with you and guide you to something you would like. Computers can fill some, but not all of this role. We are social animals. We are hard wired to feel good when we are in community with other humans, and to (in cases) develop psychosis when deprived of that contact[1]. The price of a book is trivially easy to compare, while the value of social interaction is hard to quantify. Replacing in-person commerce with online shopping because it is less expensive or more convenient may not be as good a deal as it seems. 1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8131183/#abs0002title https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8131183/#abs000...
- Tsiklon 4y ago
  I find the idea of the life of a misanthropic bookstore owner to be very appealing - very much in the vein of UK comedy show “Black Books”. I think if I had “fuck you money” and were to give up tech this would be the perfect hobby business for me.
simion314 4y ago
Just IMO, but with physical books you can open them and inspect the content, this might not be important for literature books but for more technical books you want to see examples. I am not from US and our online book stores do not allow you to electronically browse the books. Review might help, I wanted to buy a programming book for my son (Roblox sutff) and a review told me that the code listings are garbage and there is no actual care in the type setting of the book, now imagine I buy this book at the moment there is no such a reivew(and if the review was wrong then I avoided a good book), with a real store you can see for yourself, the downsides that the book selection might be limited for niche subjects. Also I think is faster to evaluate the book if you have it in your hands, you can immediately notice if the quality is bad or good, if the fonts are maybe too small so it would be hard to read, if the content feels padded with tons of irrelevant stuff, if you like the art style or language of the author. Is the same like when you want to buy a phone or monitor, if you have it in your face you can imediatly spot things you don't like and see the real dimensions where if you have just some pictures and numbers in your face it is harder.(I bought a watch as gift for someone and when it arrived I was shocked how small it is in reality, there were numbers in the description but numbers felt ok for me at that time)
- shaklee3 4y ago
  On the other hand, you will not find a Roblox programming book in a used bookstore, and almost certainly not a new bookstore either.
NegativeLatency 4y ago
Aside from other stuff listed: Local businesses enrich the local economy, while buying from amazon does not Also I’d suggest checking out a good local bookstore, it’s a whole different and IMO a more wholesome and relaxing experience.
fritztastic 4y ago
Having visited many second hand bookstores in different cities, there are absolutely books out there worth reading not available online- soke will never be available online. There are a lot of obscure books out there- old, self-published, or just really niche subjects- which will never be popular or wanted enough to find reproduced digitally. Besides being an experience in and of themselves (used bookstores are often very unique and individual, sometimes operated by interesting people who do it out of a love of books or history), you can find some real gems and sometimes even terrible unbelievable books of decades past that would never be something you could find in a regular commercial/corporate book shop selling for profit and catering to whatever is on the bestseller list, what critics recommend, and what publishers want to sell. Besides the experience and obscure books, used bookstores often are the best places to meet interesting people. Some people, myself included, love the atmisphere of these shops- the smell of old books, the piles of otherwise discarded tomes, shelves where you can find books that were once part of collections curated by bibliophiles- some of these books have annotations on them, some of them are on very niche subjects not easily found elsewhere, some so old if you look for information online you won't find anything. I've had and heard some really fascinating conversations in second hand bookshops I don't think I would ever have experienced otherwise. Some of these shops are a place of community, where people post business cards and event posters for things you wouldn't readily find out about easily- some host events in the store itself (discussion groups, games, book clubs, etc). Some have very comfortable atmosphere and welcome people coming to just hang out, no pressure to spend money. Additionally there is the possibility there for you to build a bond with the owners/keepers, who sometimes will bring out books they keep off the shelves just for you. Some old book shops are absolutely packed with everything from textbooks to catalogues to literature- unsorted treasures waiting to be found. Books with no ISBN, no online presence whatsoever, items that cannot be found otherwise (unless you were looking for them specifically, and even then they would be really difficult to procure). There is a charm to be found in these shops that just cannot be replicated in common bookstores.
anigbrowl 4y ago
Because you don't know what you don't know, and neither does Buy'n'Large. In a second hand bookstore you'll come across things in the same category that are useful and important but don't come up in a recommendation engine because they're not popular. The deeper into a field you go, the more noticeable this is. Also, the second hand bookstore isn't maintaining a secret police file on every micro-action and momentary impulse you exhibit while inside their property.
shever73 4y ago
This is a thoughtful question. For me, it's the personal contact and supporting a local business. Amazon actively (and knowingly) harms the book trade and ignores the fact that its third-party sellers sell counterfeit items. Browsing a second-hand book store is just one surprise after another. I've found books I never knew existed, but instantly fell in love with. I whiled away many hours in second hand bookshops when I visited Edinburgh. When it comes to new books, making a purchase at a local book store can really make a difference. Last year, I wanted to upgrade my ebooks of The Art Of Programming to the print editions. I could buy it from Amazon, but asking my local book store to order in the items was a wonderful experience on so many levels. The cost was a little, but not a significant amount, higher, but it allowed for some great interactions in the shop. Now, I pop in every couple of weeks, have a chat with the owner and get fantastic recommendations.
bananamerica 4y ago
Used bookstores are great for discovery, you often end up with something random and unexpected that you would never buy on a digital storefront.
bergenty 4y ago
The books are cheap and it’s satisfying to peruse. You can always have a beer at home but people love going to bars. It’s kind of like that.

BuyMyBitcoins 4y ago

For me personally, it’s the experience and atmosphere rather than the availability. There’s also the charm of browsing without looking for anything specific in mind. I know it is possible to be shown a random assortment of books online, but it doesn’t compare with simply walking down the aisles and just scanning over all the titles for what looks interesting.

Swizec 4y ago

You can't browse Amazon, it's too in your face trying to make a quick buck. I just tried browsing Goodreads and it slapped me in the face with a gigantic Please Login Right Now You Terrible Person modal. Not very browsing friendly either, I guess. There is a charm to browsing a small bookstore. 2nd hand or otherwise. You dawdle in the aisles, meander between sections you'd never think to look at, catch your eye on interesting covers, try the heft of a book, see which ones are long and which are short, the design and the font give you a sense of character, tell you a little about what this book is like to read. You turn it around, read the back to learn more ... there is a spatial component to your search. When you stumble into a book that draws your attention, you're likely surrounded by similar books you might also enjoy. The experience is distinctly inefficient. Good for when you don't know what you want. Might not even realize what you're in the mood for until you find it. And somehow you never walk out with fewer than 3 books.

milesvp 4y ago

It’s the type of people they attract. It’s the owners who are often very avid readers. It’s the collection of books you find, most of which have had some amount of curation, if only because of limited shelving. They are often very low margin so often they add charm in the same way artists do to a low rent neighborhood.

tomc1985 4y ago

And supporting them is supporting a faceless corporation run by young, ageist technocrats, where all your rights are squashed under DRM

reaperducer 4y ago

I imagine that everything worth reading is available on Amazon and rated in Goodreads. Then you should broaden your imagination. Amazon and Goodreads have barely a fraction of one percent of the books that were published. And that's just in English. It's like saying "Anything worth watching is on streaming," even though less than 5% of the world's video content ever made the translation from film to VHS to DVD to streaming. Or paper to records to tape to CD to streaming. There's a whole vast world of content out there beyond the internet. Once you discover this, it's like taking a pill in The Matrix. (My metaphor might be off there, as I've never seen The Matrix, but from what I understand from other people's conversations, that should work.)

fritztastic 4y ago
I understand your metaphor in the sense that The Matrix is a scifi adaptation of the allegory of the cave. The concept that commercial/online bookstores are where items worth finding will be found is like thinking the shadows of the cave are the only thing worth seeing. You are correct, there is so much content there be found, which isn't limited/controlled by what the big market values. Additionally those are very good points about English and streaming. There are books out there which are not translated and not digitized, which are absolutely worth reading, and will not be found anywhere besides private collections, used bookstores, flea markets, estate sales. Some of these books were originally purchased long ago and/or far away, just because they are not popular enough to be easily found does not mean they are not worh finding.
- bombcar 4y ago
  A friend of my dad is a professional book hound, and he says it amuses him when he sees others who can’t understand what to do with a book that doesn’t have an isbn.
  - dmd 4y ago
    When my wife and I wanted to catalog our modest home library (~1500 books) we were stunned when we discovered that the vast majority of web-based cataloging software assumes that all books have an ISBN. (Or did in 2015 or so). Thankfully LibraryThing does not make that assumption, and is great.

yojo 4y ago

I’ll offer another perspective: human interaction. Good book stores have good staff, helpful other humans that will engage with you and guide you to something you would like. Computers can fill some, but not all of this role. We are social animals. We are hard wired to feel good when we are in community with other humans, and to (in cases) develop psychosis when deprived of that contact[1]. The price of a book is trivially easy to compare, while the value of social interaction is hard to quantify. Replacing in-person commerce with online shopping because it is less expensive or more convenient may not be as good a deal as it seems. 1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8131183/#abs0002title https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8131183/#abs000...

Tsiklon 4y ago
I find the idea of the life of a misanthropic bookstore owner to be very appealing - very much in the vein of UK comedy show “Black Books”. I think if I had “fuck you money” and were to give up tech this would be the perfect hobby business for me.

simion314 4y ago

Just IMO, but with physical books you can open them and inspect the content, this might not be important for literature books but for more technical books you want to see examples. I am not from US and our online book stores do not allow you to electronically browse the books. Review might help, I wanted to buy a programming book for my son (Roblox sutff) and a review told me that the code listings are garbage and there is no actual care in the type setting of the book, now imagine I buy this book at the moment there is no such a reivew(and if the review was wrong then I avoided a good book), with a real store you can see for yourself, the downsides that the book selection might be limited for niche subjects. Also I think is faster to evaluate the book if you have it in your hands, you can immediately notice if the quality is bad or good, if the fonts are maybe too small so it would be hard to read, if the content feels padded with tons of irrelevant stuff, if you like the art style or language of the author. Is the same like when you want to buy a phone or monitor, if you have it in your face you can imediatly spot things you don't like and see the real dimensions where if you have just some pictures and numbers in your face it is harder.(I bought a watch as gift for someone and when it arrived I was shocked how small it is in reality, there were numbers in the description but numbers felt ok for me at that time)

shaklee3 4y ago
On the other hand, you will not find a Roblox programming book in a used bookstore, and almost certainly not a new bookstore either.

NegativeLatency 4y ago

Aside from other stuff listed: Local businesses enrich the local economy, while buying from amazon does not Also I’d suggest checking out a good local bookstore, it’s a whole different and IMO a more wholesome and relaxing experience.

fritztastic 4y ago

Having visited many second hand bookstores in different cities, there are absolutely books out there worth reading not available online- soke will never be available online. There are a lot of obscure books out there- old, self-published, or just really niche subjects- which will never be popular or wanted enough to find reproduced digitally. Besides being an experience in and of themselves (used bookstores are often very unique and individual, sometimes operated by interesting people who do it out of a love of books or history), you can find some real gems and sometimes even terrible unbelievable books of decades past that would never be something you could find in a regular commercial/corporate book shop selling for profit and catering to whatever is on the bestseller list, what critics recommend, and what publishers want to sell. Besides the experience and obscure books, used bookstores often are the best places to meet interesting people. Some people, myself included, love the atmisphere of these shops- the smell of old books, the piles of otherwise discarded tomes, shelves where you can find books that were once part of collections curated by bibliophiles- some of these books have annotations on them, some of them are on very niche subjects not easily found elsewhere, some so old if you look for information online you won't find anything. I've had and heard some really fascinating conversations in second hand bookshops I don't think I would ever have experienced otherwise. Some of these shops are a place of community, where people post business cards and event posters for things you wouldn't readily find out about easily- some host events in the store itself (discussion groups, games, book clubs, etc). Some have very comfortable atmosphere and welcome people coming to just hang out, no pressure to spend money. Additionally there is the possibility there for you to build a bond with the owners/keepers, who sometimes will bring out books they keep off the shelves just for you. Some old book shops are absolutely packed with everything from textbooks to catalogues to literature- unsorted treasures waiting to be found. Books with no ISBN, no online presence whatsoever, items that cannot be found otherwise (unless you were looking for them specifically, and even then they would be really difficult to procure). There is a charm to be found in these shops that just cannot be replicated in common bookstores.

anigbrowl 4y ago

Because you don't know what you don't know, and neither does Buy'n'Large. In a second hand bookstore you'll come across things in the same category that are useful and important but don't come up in a recommendation engine because they're not popular. The deeper into a field you go, the more noticeable this is. Also, the second hand bookstore isn't maintaining a secret police file on every micro-action and momentary impulse you exhibit while inside their property.

shever73 4y ago

This is a thoughtful question. For me, it's the personal contact and supporting a local business. Amazon actively (and knowingly) harms the book trade and ignores the fact that its third-party sellers sell counterfeit items. Browsing a second-hand book store is just one surprise after another. I've found books I never knew existed, but instantly fell in love with. I whiled away many hours in second hand bookshops when I visited Edinburgh. When it comes to new books, making a purchase at a local book store can really make a difference. Last year, I wanted to upgrade my ebooks of The Art Of Programming to the print editions. I could buy it from Amazon, but asking my local book store to order in the items was a wonderful experience on so many levels. The cost was a little, but not a significant amount, higher, but it allowed for some great interactions in the shop. Now, I pop in every couple of weeks, have a chat with the owner and get fantastic recommendations.

bananamerica 4y ago

Used bookstores are great for discovery, you often end up with something random and unexpected that you would never buy on a digital storefront.

bergenty 4y ago

The books are cheap and it’s satisfying to peruse. You can always have a beer at home but people love going to bars. It’s kind of like that.